Guide to licensing

The Guide to licensing is a general guide to EPA’s environment protection licensing requirements and provides information to help you determine if you are required to hold an environment protection licence and the steps to be followed to obtain a licence.

Do I need a licence?

The Guide to licensing (PDF 1MB) will help you determine whether you are required to hold a licence and provides other licensing information about

• how and where to apply for a licence
• how licence fees are calculated
• what you may need to do even if you are not required to hold a licence

It also provides a brief overview of the general licensing process, how it operates and what applicants need to know and provide when applying for an environment protection licence.

eConnect EPA is the Environment Protection Authority's (EPA) online licensing tool. Go to eConnect EPA to start an application for a licence.

Who can apply for a licence?

You can only apply for a licence if you are a legal entity including an individual, a registered corporation or company. A licence cannot be issued to a partnership and would need to be issued to all individuals. If your business name ends in Proprietary Limited (Pty LTD or P/L), Limited or NL (which stands for No Liability) it is a corporation. There are other entities who can hold a licence, these include:

• Body Corporates
• Incorporated Associations
• Co-operatives
• Local Councils
• Other incorporated bodies: State owned corporations, Owners' corporations, Aboriginal Land Councils, Statutory Trusts
• Government departments (body politic)

Trusts: You cannot apply for an environment protection licence on behalf of a trust, unless it is a statutory trust that has been given body corporate status by the legislation under which the trust was created. 

An application for an environment protection licence must be lodged on behalf of a corporation (including a corporate trustee), body corporate, individual or other legal entity. 

Updating your licensed premises information

The EPA is undertaking a program to update licensed premises information for all environment protection licences across NSW. 

The accuracy of licensed premises information is important, as it defines the premises on which scheduled activities are authorised to be carried out, as well as the area/activities that the licensee has overall management or control over.

The purpose of the program is to ensure that

• the premises that is licensed by the EPA is defined by data that can be accurately mapped
• the premises information accurately describes the land or waters where all licensed and ancillary activities are carried out.

If you have received a letter asking you to provide updated premises information to the EPA, the following instructions will help you provide the right information.  If you choose to use Google Earth Pro to obtain this information, the instructions include information on how to download Google Earth Pro.

• Google Earth Pro Instructions – providing spatial data (PDF 527KB) - draw a premises boundary
• Google Earth Pro Instructions – providing spatial data (PDF 420KB) – draw a discharge and monitoring point